Loading Profile...
Recent activity
Subscribe to this feed
elanvital replied on October 26, 2009 22:24 to the question "Smart(er) Shelves - if's, and's or but's !;-)" in Delicious Monster:
Yes, it worked, I have found (actually it was DL and myself) 9 space monster books in my collection - !!!
this action took only 3 minutes to set up on the panel, rather than having to scroll through everything manually sorting titles.... possibly getting distracted.... an action that would have otherwise taken me 30 minutes (or more) manually!
Thank yo so much Melman, I appreciated your help - I wish this were in the help manual - all of this time, I thought the smart shelves were more single layered equasions.....! Thanks to the internet for providing this forums for us to continue our learning...
Now I can go on to nooodle around more powerfully in my material, and hopefully get through this faster...-
elanvital replied on October 26, 2009 21:50 to the question "Smart(er) Shelves - if's, and's or but's !;-)" in Delicious Monster:
OK, so what you are doing is a little different in that you are nesting two different searches within one... hmmm let me give that theory a whirl and see how this works in practice.... -
elanvital replied on October 26, 2009 21:41 to the idea "Add custom fields (which can be used for searching and Smart Shelves)" in Delicious Monster:
Adding my vote, and LOVE the independent boutique developers who have too much to do!!! (makes me feel like im in good company!) -
elanvital replied on October 26, 2009 21:25 to the question "Smart(er) Shelves - if's, and's or but's !;-)" in Delicious Monster:
Dear Melman,
My apologies if this sounds like those annoying quizzes from our high school math classes, !;-) but hopefully it helps to show what I was meaning
Presently I have:
Monster Shelf is gathering criteria ANY:
from 1Title Keyword + 1Synopsis Keyword + 1Notes Keyword = 260 Monster books
AND
Space Shelf is gathering ALL: from 2 Notes Keywords = 55 Space books
If I do an ALL search trying to combine these criteria, I get:
1Title Keyword + 1Synopsis Keyword + 2Notes Keywords = 0 Books, because the two requests cancel each other out and there are no books that have all of these attributes together.
If I do an ANY search I get:
1Title Keyword + 1Synopsis Keyword + 2Notes Keywords = 315 Monster+Space books which just adds the searches together and does nothing to help me to find the actual books I am seeking.
I think another way of explaining it would be to have a way to contain these actions so that they can function independently, but linked - call it a search within another search - the ability to perform two different actions, one within the other. It would need to look something like this:
The following is true for example: (ANY search: 1Title Keyword + 1Synopsis Keyword + 1Notes Keyword = 260 Monsters) AND ( of ALL search: 2 Notes Keywords = 55 Space) = Adding up to say: ?18? Space/Monster Books
Another possible workaround to search more precisely within a shelf would be to expand the users capabiliites to modify searches in the search box beyond just titles and authors - but allowing users to write their own independently layered shelf searches would be of help to some of us with the bigger collections...
Bookies! It is a special kind of madness we have - seeking the right kind of cure - I think DL is a very, very good program for the bucks I paid, but there are areas where I might need a more heavyweight program? Given the value and time it saves me, I would certainly be willing to pay a higher price for that ability.... -
elanvital replied on October 26, 2009 11:04 to the question "Smart(er) Shelves - if's, and's or but's !;-)" in Delicious Monster:
Hey Melman,
Thanks for the reply! That is something I had forgotten about when I first ran through the app, so thanks for the reminder. But No, that does not answer the capability I was seeking.
If I add ANY or ALL for the keyword "space" in this manner, all I get are all my 55 "space" books added to my 260 "monster" books (who are currently all being pulled in from multiple criteria Notes, Titles, and Synopses). What I want is to seek the books pertaining to "space" within my "monster" collection..... to find "space-monster", NOT add them together.....! My only workaround for this would be to go through and re- keyword all of my "monster" Titles and Synopses and then do an "all" sort. Or to pick each of them out manually.
Adding even an extra layer as And/Or option would give me the ability to refine some searches and build more complex or refined questions based on criteria beyond just keywords.
The shelves only allow unlimited criteria, but allows only one one question at a time..... -
elanvital asked a question in Delicious Monster on October 26, 2009 02:21:
Smart(er) Shelves - if's, and's or but's !;-)LOVE this app by the way - I have a very large collection that I am categorizing, hence finding a friendly app like DL has helped me in countless ways to make better use of my collection - I have already put in over 2500 of over 5,500 books on 4-5 major research themes,have @ 150 shelves thus far and growing, which are keyword research shelves, stages of processing, storage place, sale shelves, etc. I cannot say that I feel "sane" yet, but DL is helping me to become more so... I am enjoying to getting to more fiddling around with the program and musing over my library and research - DL certainly helps me to be in better control of my large, overwhelming collection.
For general topics the smart shelves work very well.. the stetements of all/any/none are "true" really helps to provide some expression to the criteria. I was wondering if it would be much more complicated to add additional layer of expressions on top of this stage - like and/or- this woould really help with more precise braisntorming of my keyword-based shelves. ie. I have over 260 titles about Monsters gathering on an "any" shelf connecting entries from "titles", "synopses" and "notes (where I have my user generated keywords)", but can't specify another layer ("and")note to get specific to further "keyword" criteria such as "Space" or "children". If I want to quickly search "monsters" AND "space", or "monsters" AND "Children", I can't because the shelves are only one layer stetements. I work with another app called Tinderbox for my note taking, which allows the user to write as many layers as they need - is it really complicated to add even one or two extra layers?
Additionally, The general Criteria you provide are already very helpful and useful for alot of purposes, but I was wondering if we could have the option of creating our own user-created criteria names and buttons that pertain to our unpredictable, wild and idiosyncratic ways...
I'm not a sofware person, so dont know how complicated these suggestions would be to add... but please put that on my wish list! -
elanvital replied on October 26, 2009 00:49 to the idea "Total $ Value of collection" in Delicious Monster:
yes I love this idea, I have well over 5,000 books now which I am still inputting and cataloguing. Its fun, I feel a bit like Im at the lottery with each book.... It would really help instead of having to output every once in a while to see how rich I am!:-). What I find difficult, is the multiple currencies - I ahve to remove the CDN (canadian funds) from the output, so it wont be taking into account the differences or the current money market fluctuations - its only approximate, but it is nice still. -
elanvital started following the idea "Total $ Value of collection" in Delicious Monster.
-
elanvital replied on October 26, 2009 00:38 to the idea "Add Amazon Affiliate code to Publish Feature" in Delicious Monster:
yes twice as much!
